On Aug 12, 8:25*pm, John Smith wrote:
I did wonder why the authors bothered to convert from FORTRAN to C++...
but I think they did that as a separate activity, previously, for other
reasons. There's a comment in their paper about not using automated
translators, too (presumably to avoid any sort of claim that the output
of the translator is somehow contaminated with the proprietaryness of
the translator? Kind of like Intel copyrighting the assembler
instruction mnemonics for the 8080, so Zilog had to use different ones)

Probably it's just a historical artifact.. when they started their
development a while ago, they happened to start with the Richmond code,
as opposed to the Burke and Poggio code.

FORTRAN is pretty much a dead language, although you will find strong
argument to that statement in some math circles. *While I do agree that
language makes little difference to software engineers, most being
fluent in many/multiple languages, a C translation just keeps the code,
more, up-to-date.

And, none of the above is of any real importance, other than complete,
or even substantial fragments of, programs can be copyrighted. *But, I
am sure there are millions of "for statements", etc. in code that are
exact duplicates of some found in Microsoft Windows, etc. *To claim that
the truths of mathematics is patentable is just stoopid.

However, all that said, there are such things as "encoder algorithms",
for an example, and such, which are so narrow and contain such an exact
and specific set of math instructions to execute and obtain reproducible
results from, that the validity for a patent is quite obvious. *However,
as has been demonstrated, for any patented algorithm which has yet been
created, a freeware solution which is either so close in effectiveness
as to make it a moot point, or even greater in effectiveness--an example
is MP3 format (patented) as relates to Ogg Vorbis format (public domain.)

The future where patents cause real road blocks in software development,
or even "hoops to be jumped through", is still in software engineers'
future.

Regards,
JS

don't bet on it. microsoft just had to remove a major feature from
word because of patent infringement. and there are lots of cases
where companies have to buy rights to use patented features before
they can release their products, compression algorithms are just one
of many things that have been patented. even the cursor and the mouse
have patents. fortunately most of my work is using standard tools
that come with distribution licenses, and the stuff i develop that is
unique is from our own research programs so we obviously own the
rights. but if i find a free tool that has something that will make my
job much easier i have to submit the license to our software quality
and then maybe legal offices to be sure we can use it without
infringing. you know those long license statements that no one ever
reads before installing something?? most of them unfortunately make
sense to me now.